


Perso Nel Mare

by ipso__facto (ipso_facto)



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Angst, Angsty Schmoop, Community: contrelamontre, Happy Ending, Improv, Jewelry, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-03-10
Updated: 2003-03-10
Packaged: 2017-11-26 04:05:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/646365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ipso_facto/pseuds/ipso__facto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Billy will always think that jewelry should mean something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perso Nel Mare

**Author's Note:**

> For the contrelamontre tenses challenge, March 10, 2003. Thanks to ladyshrew.

Billy’s sister had a ring that she’d always worn, ever since their parents died. It was his mother’s wedding ring, and it meant a lot to both of them. Every so often, when Billy was feeling incredibly lost and alone, and his sister stroked his hair as he trembled, he would stop her, and press her hand to his lips, tasting his parent’s love in the small shining stone.  
  
It had started the day of the second funeral, when he lay in his bed, feeling young and very confused, and his sister had curled her body around him, sharing his sorrow. The ring had caught on his sweater, pulling the thread as she’d stroked his shoulder. Instead of freeing his hands from where they clasped Margaret’s underneath his head, he’d turned towards it, tonguing the wool free from the pronged setting. Something about the way the cool metal tasted, tangy and bitter in his mouth was somehow comforting, and he’d imagined that he could suck his mother’s joyous essence from the grooves and whorls of the band.  
  


* * *

  
  
Billy will always think that jewelry should mean something. Not something in that ‘What Would Jesus Do’ type of way, but something as in evoke a feeling or trigger a memory. So he will be a little bit anxious when Dom hands him a small velvet box as they sit, sipping wine at his kitchen table.  
  
"Oh, Merry, you shouldn’t have! You know I can’t marry you. Our love is forbidden!" he will agonize, throwing an arm across his forehead. "We’re cousins, for the sake of elevenses!" Billy’s leering grin will make his teeth glint in the candlelight. Dom’s balled-up napkin will catch him square in the face.  
  
"Shaddup and open it, you bloody wanker." So he will.  
  
Inside will be a small coil of thick black string -- cord, he will think, detached -- and when he grabs a section and pulls, it will unfold, revealing a pearly-looking ball in the center. "Oh! you’ve given me a yo-yo for a mouse! How can I ever thank you, Merry?"  
  
"It’s a necklace, you stupid git. Put it on."  
  
"Oh, really, Dom, it‘s really very nice of you, but...I don’t wear jewelry. It’s just a thing I have."  
  
"Oh, ‘salright then, mate. No worries. I just thought..." He will reach across the table for the bottle of wine, the collar of his shirt falling open, and Billy’s eyes will be caught by a shimmer in the hollow of his throat.  
  
"Oh," Billy will exhale, feeling a slight pang in his chest.  
  
"Bills, no, it’s just...a thing, you know? Cause we’re friends." The words will hang stale and heavy in the golden evening light.  
  
"Aye. Friends," his lilting brogue will seem quiet, dampened by the tension in the air.  
  
Dom won’t be looking at Billy. He’ll be staring at the tiles on the kitchen floor, at the coffee maker, anywhere but at Billy. But Billy won’t be able to stop looking at Dom, and suddenly he’ll want to see. He’ll uncoil from his chair and step past the table. Billy’s finger will be pointed, taut, as he pushes Dom’s chin up towards his anxious face. Dom will be trembling, unsure, and his eyes dark and cloudy but Billy will see the flame reflected in their slick surface.  
  
"The necklace looks _right,_ " Billy will think. It will look perfect and brilliant and tantalizing. He will wonder what it would look like nestled in the space between his own collarbones, wonder what Dom would think to see it there. Dom’s eyes will meet his own, and Billy will wonder if pearls taste like the sea.  
  
Billy will kneel, changing the angle. Dom’s chin will still rest on his finger. He will keep their gazes locked until the last possible second, finally closing his eyes as a shiver flutters through his chest and belly when his tongue scrapes the surface of the bead. It will taste of salt, yes, and musk, but quite different from the sea. It will be silky against his lips as he sucks it in to clink against his teeth and presses his lips to Dom’s neck. Dom’s pulse will pound, and Billy’s lips will throb in time with it.  
  
And later, as he falls backwards onto his bed, Dom a frenzied weight on top of him, Billy will think in some tiny corner of his brain of his sister’s ring, and realize just exactly what it is that he has tasted in the layers of the pearl.  
  
 _end._


End file.
